[Scorpia] Britain holds billions of pounds of foreign debt.
You will abandon your claim to this debt.
You will give the money over.
Refuse, and Invisible Sword will strike.
They're bluffing.
[Scorpia] You don't believe the threat is real?
[Mrs. Jones] They're dead. They're all dead.
I want options.
We gave you options, you overruled them.
I expect you'll want to inform the PM.
[gunshots, machine beeping]
[Syl] If you can't kill...
...you're weak.
[Alex] What's that?
Pain relief. Inhalation gets it into your bloodstream quicker.
[Nile] Go back to London.
- Hang on, hang on. - You changed your mind?
You do as you're told, or he dies.
I can't leave him. They are gonna kill him.
- We're already on the plane. - What did you do?
Like you said, we're the secret weapon, so we're going to find Alex.
[Yassen] Kendo Shinai. Five against one.
No mercy. Begin.
[alarm blares]
[all grunting]
[Mateo yells in pain]
- Hey, hey, stop! Leave him alone. - [bone cracks]
[bone crack sound] [screams]
[Nile] No mercy.
You should have struck when you had the chance.
- You all right? - Get off me!
If you've got a problem, punish me. Don't take it out on someone else.
You keep expecting things to be fair. Scorpia needs you to be ready. Step up.
Or you're no use to us.
- [Mateo groans] - [Alyona] It's okay.
[Mateo] I told you. He's not one of us.
We're gonna agree to the demands.
We've seen what they can do. Do you know how they did it?
Can you stop it happening again to 100,000 people?
We have no choice.
The pathology results could give us a lead.
You can't just shut us down now.
Do you trust Scorpia to stick to their side of the bargain?
[Kellner] We know the risks.
The Cabinet's been in session all night.
This is the PM's decision.
Stand down your investigation. Forget about finding Scorpia.
We need you to negotiate with them instead.
Negotiate for what?
Time.
We can't just cancel foreign debt overnight.
That would cripple us, economically and politically.
We need to take measures.
The Bank of England's gonna freeze interest rates.
We'll issue government bonds at a discount
and pull in debt from elsewhere to shore things up.
But none of that can happen quickly and not without causing panic.
How long do you need?
A month. Three months would be better.
We need you to stall them.
You need to convince them.
[Blunt] Turn them on.
Good news. They're agreeing to your demands.
[Scorpia] You have three days.
[Blunt] Well, it's a complicated situation.
Global stability is in the balance. We need more than three days.
[Scorpia] You seek to negotiate with us?
It's what people of good faith do.
[Scorpia] Your government holds other people to ransom.
A gun to the head or a figure on a balance sheet.
It is terrorism.
And we do not negotiate with terrorists.
Listen.
We want to comply. We just need more time.
[Julia] You have three days.
Or we will wipe out an entire British city.
[tablet beeps]
[theme song playing]
Tom!
[Tom groans]
Remind me again why we couldn't just stay in a hostel?
[Kyra] Look.
What you-- I can't-- I'm up. I'm up. What you need?
I've been triangulating the cell mast data. I have a fix.
I think I found Alex.
[Tom] Okay, well, where is he then?
[Kyra] He's here.
How do we get there?
I did this. You do that.
Okay, a "good morning" would be nice.
- Good morning. - Thank you.
So that's it. Diplomatic solution. We're shut down.
One thing we should all have learned about Scorpia by now
is never to underestimate them.
If we sit on our hands, three days from now,
we'll find out what the plan really was, and it will be too late.
We need the forensic results, find out what killed those people.
Communications analysis. What are we missing?
I'll keep Kellner and the government off our backs.
Invisible Sword.
We have three days to find and destroy it.
[Kyra] You're kidding.
What's wrong with it? It's fine.
You really think that will carry two people?
She may not look like much, but she's got it where it counts, kid.
Don't do that.
I'm just trying to lighten the mood.
Um, I didn't know what size head you were, so I took a little gamble and went small.
It's a bit dinged up, but it adds character. Take that.
- Hop on. - No way. I'll drive.
No, no, I'll be driving.
Do you even know how?
Look, be honest.
Would you rather your arms around me, or my arms around you?
[sighs]
That's what I thought. Let's go! Whoo!
[ominous music playing]
Cause of death was cardiac arrest. All of them.
Simultaneous heart attacks. That's impossible.
I see your "impossible," and I raise you 11 bodies.
Then how?
Cyanide, direct to the heart tissue.
More than enough to cause cardiac arrest.
I was with them on the bus. Nobody touched them.
The post-mortem didn't show any signs of puncture wounds or injection points.
And toxicology confirms that only the heart tissue was affected.
How do you get cyanide into 11 fit, healthy athletes?
Young. Some as young as Alex.
I hear you went to see Jack Starbright.
Yes, I was just checking in. Can we focus, please?
We're multitasking. Is there anything I should know?
Alex is out of the country, thank goodness.
I thought you weren't his handler anymore.
I'm not.
So, is "checking in" a good idea?
I suppose I still feel responsible.
But he's far away from all of this.
You did that. We fought his corner, and we got him out.
He's out there being a teenager because of us.
[scoffs]
Inhalation?
Not injection, not ingestion. Inhalation.
They didn't find anything in the lungs.
Yes, but there was something in the blood work.
Here. Look at this.
Trace amounts of gold in the bloodstream.
Gold is inert, isn't it?
Yes, exactly. Neutral and non-reactive.
Wouldn't have hurt them in the slightest. But it's in all of them.
Just a hunch.
I'm going to the stadium.
Right. Take Crawley with you.
Because nobody goes anywhere alone until this is over.
♪
[Tom] What is that?
[Kyra] That's where the call came from.
[Kyra] Get down!
[Tom] It's a bit fancy.
[Kyra] Yeah, but who is in it?
It's Alex. There he is. There he is. He's alive.
Yeah, I see him.
Alex Rider.
So, you played me from the start.
[Max] Don't be too hard on yourself, Alex.
Hiding in plain sight is something we do very well.
Max Grendel.
[Tom] Who is he meeting? I can't see his face.
Is that Scorpia?
Julia Rothman's expecting you.
Max. This is an unexpected pleasure.
Not so unexpected. You sent a welcome party.
Alex and I have been catching up.
A very promising young man, wouldn't you say?
I thought you were going back to Prague.
No. I'm staying a few extra days. There are things we need to discuss.
Let's take a seat.
Actually, we should tour the facility while you update me on your progress.
[Julia] Of course.
Thank you, Alex, that'll be all.
Okay. Enjoy the tour.
How's your protégé faring?
Surprising all of us. He's better than we could have hoped.
Always the long game.
You didn't come all the way out here to talk about Alex Rider.
No. I want you to abort Invisible Sword.
Why?
You know why.
[Julia] Children?
Max, we know each other too well.
You were 100 percent behind the Cray Project,
and that would have killed millions. Children included.
It's a little late to get squeamish.
That was Cray's plan, and he was insane.
Are we insane too?
You know what we stand to gain here.
If you're trying to appeal to my humanity...
then you don't know me as well as you think you do.
What's really going on?
All right, then. This is about you.
Me?
I have no problem with the plan to restore Scorpia's power.
Nor with killing to make that happen.
But the first rule of success is "Don't make it personal."
Stay in the shadows. Stay invisible. It's how we survive.
But this is personal. This is your past catching up with you.
And you are drawing us straight into the spotlight.
I have no idea what you mean.
You chose a British city. You made the demands unreasonable.
You, yourself, speak to Blunt directly.
And now you have Alex Rider here, training.
You don't wanna just win. You want revenge.
Of course I do. Don't you?
It's not necessary.
It is to me.
And that's why you should walk away.
The board voted. I have control. Invisible Sword will go ahead as planned.
We stand together as always.
Not this time. I'm leaving.
No one leaves, Max.
Then I'll be the first.
Max.
You'll be missed.
Goodbye, Julia.
[door opens and closes]
What are you doing in here?
Looking for you.
I'm bored.
You said we'd talk if I proved myself.
And I can do more than meet-and-greets. I want to know when it gets real.
You've covered incursion planning?
In detail.
So, let's put it into practice.
There's a house, here in Malta.
State-of-the-art security systems throughout.
On the upper floor is a study
with a painting on the wall of a huntsman with two dogs.
And behind that painting is a safe.
I want you to bring me what's inside.
What is it?
That's not important.
What is important is that you must be invisible, undetected.
It must be as if you were never there.
Yassen will give you everything you need. And he'll go with you.
And if I pass this test?
[chuckles] Alex, this is not a test.
You wanted the real thing.
So, complete this mission,
and you'll have proved yourself to all of us.
Okay.
[sighs]
[Crawley] The traces of gold showed up in all the victims?
Every single one.
You can get champagne with little gold pieces floating in it,
and sometimes restaurants put gold foil on food.
We lead very different lives.
I read things.
It's a good idea,
but gold would pass through the digestive tract.
This is something different.
It was a cold morning.
The heating would have been on.
It's a liquid-to-gas diffuser.
Cartridges are empty.
We're okay.
What is that?
[Smithers] I think this is a bullet.
If that's a bullet, where's the trigger?
[knocking on door]
Hey.
What's all this?
I have to plan an incursion into an actual house.
Real world?
Yeah.
It's a tough one, apparently.
Going somewhere?
Training's over. I'm being posted to my assignment.
Real world for the both of us now.
Let's hope I handle it a lot better than you're about to.
What's that supposed to mean?
You've already failed. You've tripped the alarms.
The police are coming.
Where?
The infrared detectors on the approach.
You clip the radius here and here.
What happened with Mateo this morning?
If you can't make the kill when it's right in front of you,
why are you here?
You think you can avoid it, don't you?
You think if you're clever enough, if you think outside the box...
...that you won't have to kill.
That it's going to go away.
It's not.
I'll cross that bridge when I get to it.
You will get to it. It's where the road leads.
And that's when you'll find out what you're really capable of.
I did.
Good luck with your mission.
Hey.
Watch your back.
Always.
[door closes]
[Jack] Uh-huh.
Yeah, but the case laws on that date back to the 1970s.
Isn't there anything more recent we can put in front of the judge?
[knocking on door]
Okay, if you could.
Uh-huh. Just e-mail it to me. Thanks, Leah.
- Jack Starbright? - Yeah?
[cell phone ringing]
- Hello? - [Tom] Okay, good job picking up.
But maybe don't answer the door to anyone you don't know
- for a little while. - Tom...
...where have you been?
Sorry. It's been complicated.
But we're good, we're safe. It's just-- We have to be careful.
Okay? Put some protocols in place.
Remember "stranger danger" as a kid?
Have you been arrested again?
Scorpia found out about us, so we're under the radar.
We found Alex, we can't get to him, but we're on it.
Scorpia? Are they watching me?
[Tom] Great, now she's freaking out. Thanks.
Um, just don't talk to anyone. Don't open the door to anyone.
Don't contact us using your phone.
- [Tom] Jack. - Mm-hm.
I need you to trust us, okay? We can do this. But we need to be smart.
I do trust you. I'm just scared... for Alex.
Yeah, I know. I know. Us too.
When we get more information, we'll send you another package.
But for now, better cover your tracks. We can't leave any footprints in the snow.
I don't know what-- What do you mean?
He means smash the phone.
[Jack] Okay. Okay, yeah. I got it.
Good luck. Bring him home.
Yeah, we will.
[suspenseful music playing]
What's that?
Shopping list.
[Yassen] Infrared fogging unit. Okay.
Be careful.
This... What does this say? What is this?
CCTV scrambler.
Oh.
This. Working. Good.
Beam displacer. These two parts, okay?
This is the refraction mirror. Be very careful. Put it in the side, down there.
You've put "lockpick"?
I left my last one in Nile.
We can do better.
This...
is an automatic pick.
Works on almost anything.
Nice.
You know, when the department sent me to Point Blanc,
they gave me a radio disguised as an MP3 player,
and it didn't even work.
Well, we each have our resources.
But the most important component is the operative, is you.
So, what's in the safe?
I don't know.
Is it something to do with Consanto?
Alex, we have our mission. We don't ask questions.
Mrs. Jones would have told me.
Well, I'm not her.
- [Smithers] Wait. Slow down. - [Crawley] These were checked.
[Smithers] But look at the situation. Line of sight from the building.
Elevated position.
And it's the same route the football team took.
[pensive music playing]
[Crawley] I'm telling you, it's clear. There was no one here.
[Smithers] There didn't need to be.
[Smithers] That van wasn't there yesterday.
[tense music]
[Smithers] Need a hand with that?
[Crawley] Hands where I can see them. Now.
Whatever you're thinking of doing, don't.
- I've got no choice. - Don't!
Damn it!
[Crawley] Stay back.
- [choking] - [Smithers] Nerve agent.
What the hell was he doing that was worth dying for?
Removing the evidence.
Why two agents?
What?
This is a simple infiltration op. Why do I need you as my shadow?
I don't want you to fail.
I don't want you to die.
So, we're a team.
[Yassen] We're a team.
Then who's the leader?
It's your mission. You're in command.
Okay.
- Kyra. Kyra, wake up. Wake up. - Hmm?
Something's happening. Something's happening.
[suspenseful music playing]
It's Alex!
So, uh, what's the plan?
We follow them.
[Tom] Get down.
Get on.
How do you want... You okay with me...?
Just hold on!
Yeah, okay. I am, I think. I'm gonna...
Invisible Sword is a weapon in two parts.
This is the first part.
A diffuser unit. It diffuses vapor into the air.
Inside that vapor are tiny particles of cyanide.
Now, each particle is encased within an inert shell made of gold.
So, to begin with, it's entirely harmless to the body.
If you breathe this in, you won't smell it, you won't taste it,
you wouldn't feel a thing.
But in fact, a lethal dose of cyanide is now inside you,
waiting to be triggered.
This was in the locker room at the stadium?
In the heating vents. Must have emptied and dispersed by the time we got there.
So, if you're breathing in cyanide,
how does it go straight to the heart, missing everything else out?
That's the really clever part.
I think that the nanoparticles have been protein-coated
to bond specifically with cardiac tissue.
Precision engineering on a molecular level.
Sort of guidance system.
Like tiny missiles all with one target.
It's the same technology doctors are using to target cancer cells,
only here, instead of delivering medicine, it's delivering poison.
And what happens when it reaches the heart?
The particles bond to the heart tissue, and there they sit.
More and more of them, clustered together,
but still safely encased in their gold microscopic shells.
[Crawley] Until...
Scorpia pull the trigger.
This looks like a mobile phone pod, but it's absolutely not.
In fact, it's an extremely powerful terahertz transmitter,
tuned precisely to the resonant frequency of the gold nano-shells.
So, if you have a heart-load of cyanide particles,
and you're anywhere near this...?
It will shake the coating apart and allow the cyanide to burst free.
[Crawley] It was targeting the team from the moment they were on the road,
which gives an exposure time of around three minutes.
After that, you drop dead of heart failure.
If you've already been contaminated with cyanide vapor, would you know?
[Smithers] No.
[Smithers] You wouldn't have a clue.
[Mrs. Jones] Until Scorpia turn the transmitter weapon on you.
[Smithers] And then you're dead.
[Blunt] So winter, cold.
Every office building, every train station,
every shopping center has the heating system on.
It's the perfect dispersal mechanism.
And we can't tell who's been infected?
Not without cutting open their hearts.
We could try to find the dispersal units, but my guess is they'll be long gone.
This could have been set up weeks ago.
Would this pod be able to wipe out an entire city?
No. You'd need something much bigger.
A serious, large-scale transmitter array.
Multiple units, 360 degrees, a massive power source.
And high up.
The top of a building, or a mast, or a tower.
So find it.
No staff, no guards.
Everything's trusted to the security system.
Now, we wait.
Okay.
What is this place?
[Kyra] Don't know.
Looks like they're scoping it out.
Who's he with?
It's Yassen.
[slow ominous music]
[suspenseful music playing]
[beeping]
That's it. The security panel is in that cabinet.
[Yassen] We need to hurry.
[click and hissing sound]
[mechanical clicking]
Let's go find the safe.
You lead the way.
Bingo.
Bit late for visitors, isn't it?
So, Julia's given you your first field mission.
Where is it?
[Max] Where is what?
The safe.
[Max] There is no safe.
Whatever information exists, it's all in here.
And Julia knows that.
But you don't, do you?
Alex, tell me, did you come here alone?
Yassen.
Max.
Sorry, what's going on here?
Would you like to finish your drink?
No. Thank you.
Kyra, what is it?
This is what you had to see, to learn.
This is what we do.
He was one of you.
He was our target, Alex.
He was unarmed!
Well, he was still our target.
Now, put the painting back up. We have to hurry.
I got you in.
Alex, this is what your father did.
Tom. Tom. Yassen is still inside. Wait. Tom!
Alex.
Tom? What are you doing?
Saving you, man. Come on. Run.
You can't be here.
- You need to leave. - What? Why?
Get out of here, right now!
No way!
Yassen's coming. If he sees you, he'll kill you!
- Exactly, so come on! - I can't.
What's happened?
I messed up. Okay? I really did. You don't understand. You have to go.
No, no. Not without you. Okay?
You can't help me. Go. Go!
Progress?
We have undercover units in all major metropolitan areas.
They're checking for skyscrapers, cell masts,
any new microwave dishes or cellphone transmitters.
Nothing as yet.
It's the old "bigger picture," isn't it?
I have been thinking about the bigger picture.
Always a good idea.
Scorpia want us to cancel foreign debt. But why? They're not humanitarians.
Go on.
When they said they don't negotiate with terrorists,
that really pushed Kellner's buttons.
It's as if they want the negotiations to fail.
What do you think they're doing?
I think they're trying to make us angry.
Because angry people don't think straight. They make mistakes.
You lied to me! You made me part of a murder!
- Alex. - I told you I didn't want this,
and you killed Max just to prove a point!
Don't you dare say that. Max was my friend. My oldest friend.
- Then why would you kill him? - He was going to betray us.
And you and I have both been betrayed too many times.
Don't make this about me.
But it is.
Alex, I know your past.
What's that supposed to mean?
You're a Scorpia operative now, Alex.
Your job isn't to question me or to second-guess your orders.
It's to execute your missions.
[device buzzing]
[buzzing]
[grunts]
[tone sounding]
[Mrs. Jones] Jones to all units. Prisoners are in position.
We're ready for exchange. Remember, nobody fires unless ordered.
[sniper 1] Tac One, I have the target.
[sniper 2] Tac Two, on target.
[pensive music playing]
Tac One, Jones. Take the shot.
[gunshot]
[sniper 1] Tac One. Target's down. Clean kill.
[Mrs. Jones] Tac One, Jones. Take the shot.
[gunshot]
[sniper 1] Tac One. Target's down. Clean kill.
I didn't think you were ready for this.
She gave the order.
Yes.
Mrs. Jones came to my house. I trusted her.
Why? Why did she kill him?
You see now?
She betrayed you. Just as Max betrayed me.
That target on your wall. I think it's time we gave it a name.
[intense music playing]